Saturday, January 12, 2008

City 1 - 0 Sheffield Wednesday

Another 3 points lifts us to 8th after a hard earned win against the Owls. City were all over Wednesday in the first 20 minutes, and arguably should have been a couple up by then. In fact it took until the 36th minutes before the goal came, and ironically it was Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink who scored. He'd had (in my opinion - and most of those sitting around me) a torrid opening, unable to hold the ball up, passes going astray almost every time and so on. In typically fickle supporters fashion, a lot of people were saying "get him off", but then he scores and he's a hero. That's football.
To be fair he did much better after that - isn't confidence a wonderful thing - and his hold up play and distribution wimproved dramatically. City were looking good all round the park in the first period and Joe Ledly should have made it 2 when delightfully put through 1 on 1 with their keeper but pushed it just wide. Our "Rodge" (Roger Johnson) also hit the post with a decent header and Whittingham forced a save also.

The second half was completely different. A couple of rash challenges on Johnson and McNaughton who both required extensive treatment went unpunished, but both stayed on and as the Owls pushed harder, City fell deeper and rather than trying to retain posession just hoofed the ball away and waited for it to come back at them. The last 20 minutes or so, including the 6 minutes of added time was real nailbiting stuff and was pretty much all Sheffield Wednesday, but City held on for the win, and got a huge cheer at the end. The fans MoM was Kevin "Naughts" McNaughton who's back in a rich vein of form (his o.g. at Chasetown last week notwithstanding). This is more resilience than City have shown for a long time. Long may it continue.

More good news is that Ricardo Scimeca, Trevor Sinclair and RF are all on their way to recovery and fitness, Scimeca probably slightly ahead of the others. If we can get into the top 6 ahead of the run in with Scimeca back, who knows what might happen?
Up the Blooobirds!

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